Tag Archives: quarter life birthday

This might sound silly, but I am destined to do something great with life. Perhaps we should all feel this way to some degree. It drives my intrinsic motivation haywire and might explain my joining the military to be a physician. This might also explain why I feel a lurking presence telling me I should be doing more. I want to do something great, but I cannot tell you what that is yet. If it’s not medicine, I want it to be a book.

My greatest goal in life is to write a novel. Nothing like the ramblings in this blog, mind you, but something more legitimate. There’s a story I have been wanting to tell for quite some time. Still cannot figure out how I want it to end though. Maybe I’ll figure it out as I put the pieces together and start letting my stream of consciousness take over into something of substance.

An unfortunate thing about creative writing: I am most motivated in times of emotional despair. Words come easily when my amygdala is on fire. Probably related to why the most amazing artists have the most tragic backgrounds. I will use that as one of my explanations for the gaps in my blog posts during medical school: I am having a great time and do not feel the need for writing to be an outlet for negative energy anymore. I think I need a new approach: channeling my positive energy into writing as much as I use it as an emotional outlet.

In other news, I turned 25 on Friday. Celebrated at the Cheesecake Factory (my fave) and received warm wishes from friends and family all over. Birthdays 23 and 24 don’t feel like too long ago, yet so much has happened in the past couple years, let alone the past few months. For one, my first-author manuscript about hippocampal volume changes in childhood-onset schizophrenia has been accepted for publication in Psychological Medicine! Achieving a first-author publication has been a dream since I first looked into working at NIH. I have experienced my fair share of projects falling through last minute, as is the case with medical research. I am lucky to have a few co-authorships, but achieving that first-author was a battle and great success.

For anyone curious about post-winter break USU curriculum, CPR (cardio-pulmonary-renal) and Neuroscience modules have certainly lived up to their reputations. Most organized modules but also the most difficult. Rumor has it that school is much easier during GI module, which seems like a break in comparison. Honestly though, in CPR I began relaxing more and successfully struck a balance in this work-life business that people say you lose during medical school.

Medical school is about balancing priorities. Mine are academics, mental wellness, physical health, and family/friends (I show up to the important things)… with my priorities in that order on a normal school day. Others likely have a different order, especially if they have children, focus on extracurricular organizations, or are social butterflies. We all have our own methods of studying and we all have our own methods of decompressing. You do you.

CPR was a great opportunity to find that balance, and I have kept it up in Neuroscience. The module directors in both of these modules are beyond accessible and approachable; faculty members genuinely want their students to succeed. I watch a lot of television these days, but I feel my time spent studying is more high quality (I will let you know if I am singing a new tune after Tuesday’s midterms). CPR and Neuroscience have Dean’s Time galore (2-3 free afternoons a week), making it easier to keep up with the material. I find this is the case more so with Neuroscience because CPR had dozens of assignments due (plus I was not a huge fan of the graded small group sessions), but the nice thing in CPR was having a full week dedicated to both midterms and finals. My preferred study style is old school: by myself, with papers and notebooks. Some other classmates prefer the group style and/or computers/tablets.

Our combat medical skills classes have been pretty cool the past few rounds. Military Medicine is an overarching module we have interspersed in our curriculum. We’ve learned how to intubate and other methods of establishing an airway, how to appropriately assess a patient at a scene and safely transport them, and we’ve done basic IVs on each other. Later this week, we will be doing more advanced IV techniques (still on each other) that involve injecting local anesthetics. I’m both excited and terrified! [Note: no one is pressured to perform the procedures or to have IVs done on them, but most people do. The goal is that we know the process and are familiar with these techniques during our preclerkship years].

Life has been treating me well. Today is actually the first day in two months that I have not had a low-grade fever, and I am finally recovering from an unfortunate bout of pneumonia. Oh right, my other explanation for not updating my blog… The Saturday after our CPR midterms, I went on a 7-hour GoRuck event romping around DC with some Air Force buddies. I had a sore throat before the event, which likely predisposed me to catching something more serious. I progressed to full-blown “I have never felt so awful in my entire life” within 24 hours and lost 8 pounds in the first week. Don’t worry, I got my appetite back pretty quickly and found those pounds again. All that matters is I am finally feeling well and got my much-needed energy back, hence motivation to write 🙂

Well, that’s all I have for now. Neuroscience is certainly my favorite module thus far — coming from a Neuroscience major who wants to specialize in something related to Neurology/Psychiatry. No matter your interests, opening a human skull and dissecting brains are surreal and truly amazing.

Stay tuned for an up-to-date COT packing list for those of you heading to Alabama this summer. TBA in a future blog post.